With the end of socialism, South East European societies experienced a most dramatic increase in poverty and socio-economic inequality. Some might have hoped that the transition from the generalised inefficiency of bureaucratic socialism to Western-style capitalist market economies would bring Western-style mass prosperity to South Eastern Europe, but the actual experience of social polarisation proves the opposite. It is against this background that the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, through its regional project “Dialogue South East Europe”, in 2007 launched a project “Towards Social Inclusion in South Eastern Europe”. The project was conceived of as a means to direct public debate in the various countries towards the challenge of social exclusion and towards policy options of responding to it. The regional project consequently decided to broaden the original project “Social Inclusion” to a more permanent working line on “Social Policy in South-East-Europe”. A number of thematic ideas were put forward and further sequences of studies and conferences were initiated, the results of which are published in the series of FES Regional Studies in SEE.

This fifth issue of the series includes the national analyses of the labour market and employment policies of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Rumania, and Serbia.